Playable Imaging – Photography in, as, and against games

Practices of image-making within video games reveal heightened tensions within contemporary images: adding further complexity to the relationship between traditional understandings of photography and computer games, between image capture and the act of play, between representation and operations in computational images, and between simulation and the camera apparatus. This thesis thus proposes the concept of playable imaging as a model for understanding the production, circulation, and consumption of images within computer games, and furthermore examines how the act of play fundamentally reshapes our understanding of the production and the cultural function of images more widely. Drawing on discourses of post-photography, networked and operational images, as well as play theory and game studies, the thesis examines the role of play as a cultural force that is integral to image-making. In doing so, it positions video games as not merely ludic environments but as part of a relational assemblage connected to image production, circulation, and consumption. Playable Imaging unfolds across three relational axes with the game object: the relation between the game and the photographer, between the game and the image, and between the game and the camera apparatus. Each of these axes reveals how game structures and player agency co-construct new forms of visual culture that challenge and extend traditional photographic paradigms. The thesis proceeds to situate playable imaging within broader socio-technical assemblages, in which human and non-human actors (players, developers, algorithms, and interfaces) collaborate in the production of contested meanings. 3 Methodologically, the research synthesizes academic inquiry with curatorial practice, through a dialogue between the written thesis and the co-curated exhibition How to Win at Photography – Image-Making as Play, held at Fotomuseum Winterthur (2021) and The Photographers’ Gallery (2022). Playable imaging reveals that image-making within games not only reproduces but also holds the potential to subvert capitalist image economies, generating visual forms. As a consequence, it can be seen how play emerges as a critical factor in shaping visual ideologies, technological infrastructures, and socio-political narratives within digital culture. This thesis ultimately proposes playable imaging as an epistemological and curatorial framework for making sense of the entangled relations between games, photography, and contemporary visual culture.